Shipping pallets are said to move the world. Eighty percent of commerce ships on shipping pallets. They are estimated at greater than a $30 B industry worldwide. More than 500 million pallets are manufactured in the US each year, with 1.8 billion pallets in service in the US alone.
Pallets can be made from various materials, however wood pallets currently comprise about 80% of the market. More than 40% of worldwide hardwood lumber currently goes to manufacture of wood pallets. Other materials used for pallet manufacture include plastic, metal and corrugated paperboard.
Recent regulations regarding infestation and contamination are creating a surge in interest and use of non-wood pallet alternatives. A small, but the fastest growing segment, is the use of corrugated paperboard pallets. There is a desire by many to replace conventional wooden pallets with corrugated pallets for increasing recyclability, lowering pallet weight, eliminating product contamination and reducing injuries. Despite the potential advantages of corrugated pallets, their use has not yet become mainstream. Significant deficiencies holding back their use have been too high costs and an inherent inability to be able to readily produce and distribute them in sufficiently high volume.
In both private and public industries, it is desirable to be able to ship items with reduced total costs. Currently, shipping pallets require extensive storage space, significant logistical costs as well as injury and product damage uncertainty costs. A new shipping method is needed to facilitate shippers to easily and reliably ship items in high volume and with the lowest possible total cost.